Trickster
by magic-mysticeti
Summary: In which the Doctor inexplicably loses his pants, replicators churn out nothing but stale pies for a week, and Neelix's cooking tastes worse than ever for no real reason. But why are these troubling things happening, and who is causing them? Will Voyager's intrepid crew find out the answers to these questions before something truly terrible occurs?


The Doctor hummed to himself in the semi-darkness of sickbay, examining a series of vials and placing them one by one in a small centrifuge. The small instrument emitted a quiet whirring as it spun, the green-yellow liquid in each vial slowly congealing into soft-looking chunks. It was approximately 0300 hours, and the Doctor was alone with his equipment. Or so he thought.

As the Doctor burst into full-fledged song (was it Puccini? Or perhaps Wagner?) a dark figure scuttled through the shadows, coming to a wary halt behind a console. He held himself low to the ground on spindly arms and legs, his odd beet-purple eyes flashing with barely concealed excitement. He poked his head out from behind the console, peering up at the Doctor's back as he hit a high note, uncapping a vial with unnecessary flair and pouring the goopy mess inside of it onto a petri dish. The gangly alien stood up, towering over the Doctor from behind.

"Computer, deactivate the EMH!" He commanded in a high, reedy voice, proudly reciting the phrase from memory. The Doctor barely had enough time to rearrange his features into an expression of deepest shock before he shimmered away into nothingness, leaving the alien to rush back over to the console. He tapped away at the controls with almost an expert swiftness, cackling with childish glee as his spiny fingers danced and flashed away. "Oh, he's going to _love _this," the alien muttered to himself, making one last adjustment to the Doctor's program before crouching back into the shadows. "Just you wait and see."

"Doctor?" Kes entered the sickbay with the usual pneumatic _whoosh _of the doors, clutching a PADD in her hands. "I have that report you wanted." She looked around. The sickbay was dark, and unusually so. "Computer, lights." Much better. But she still couldn't understand why they were off in the first place. "Computer, activate the EMH." The computer complied and the Doctor appeared in front of her in a shimmer of blue light.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." He smiled when he saw Kes. "Well, good morning. I presume you have that report on native Minean vegetation I wanted?" Kes didn't reply. She was too busy staring at the Doctor, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide. She had dropped the PADD. He frowned. "Should I be concerned about something?"

"Doctor!" She gasped, her cheeks burning red. "You're - you're not wearing any pants!"

His gaze shot downward, where he was treated to the mortifying sight of his own bare legs (a bit hairier than he would have preferred) encased in a pair of unsightly white briefs. His mouth gaped open and shut like a fish out of water. For a terrible moment he could only stand there staring at himself, frantically trying to come up with some kind of explanation. He found none. When he dared to look up, Kes was gone, presumably to find someone who could help, or to simply escape the awful scene.

"How - how on earth could this have -?" he whispered in plain shock, fingering the plain cotton waistband. "Is this someone's idea of a joke? Tom Paris's, perhaps?" And indeed, he could think of no one else who would do such a thing. His confusion quickly turned to anger. "Of course it was him! Why, the little miscreant -"

There was a _whoosh_, and B'Elanna strode in with Kes close behind. The Doctor dove behind his office desk.

"- you'll be able to fix it, won't you, B'Elanna? I don't know how he'll be able to treat patients like this - he seemed very embarrassed -" B'Elanna waved her hand.

"He'll be fine, Kes. It's probably some kind of glitch in his physical parameters. Or maybe it's just a cruel prank. Either way, it'll be easy to fix." She stopped, looked around. "Speaking of which, where _is _he?"

The Doctor poked his head up from behind his desk. "I'm here. And unable to greet you in the normal way, I'm afraid." B'Elanna raised her eyebrows. "There's really no need to hide, Doc. I know your program from the inside out." He took a deep breath. "I'm afraid it's a matter of.. personal dignity. I do have a reputation to maintain, you know." She rolled her eyes. "He's fine. Now let's get him his pants back."

But after a full 30 minutes of tapping away at the console, B'Elanna was unable to recover a single photonic stitch of the Doctor's pants. "I don't understand." She muttered. "This is much more calculated than some glitch - someone made this happen, and that someone really knows what they're doing." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Doc, but I'm not sure what else to try. Whoever did this has totally locked in your visual parameters - I can't even access them, let alone edit them. I'll send someone in later today."

And with that, B'Elanna left, leaving a totally astonished Doctor alone with Kes. She blushed a little, but looked genuinely sorry for the him.

"Does she mean I'll have to look like this all day!?" he cried.

Kes bit her lip.

"If you like, Doctor, I can handle sickbay for today. Why don't you go and try to get your mind off things in the Holodeck?"

His jaw was set. "Nonsense. You'll do nothing of the kind. I can't allow a little thing like this to keep me from my professional duties, can I?" He held a petri dish to the light. "Besides, I've got plenty of work to do. Fetch me a blanket from that bio-bed, will you, Kes? I wouldn't want to catch a chill." He tied the blanket around his waist. "There. That's better." He looked at Kes with a determined gleam in his eye. "You can go. I'll handle it from here." She nodded quickly and rushed out of the room, not wanting to push the clearly hurt Doctor.

And unbeknownst to the both of them, an alien rocked back and forth with giggles in the corner of the room. A tall and spindly alien with purple eyes. "Oh," he laughed softly to himself, wiping his eyes. "Oh, and this is only the beginning."


End file.
